Gas turbine engines, such as those which power aircraft and industrial equipment, employ a compressor to compress air that is drawn into the engine and a turbine to capture energy associated with the combustion of a fuel-air mixture. Engineers of such engines have to constantly work with and design for large tolerance stacks (e.g., collections of various tolerances) and circumstances that impact data integrity, installation, and performance quality and repeatability.
Various sections of the engine may be connected to one another via one or more attachment mechanisms, such as one or more bolts. A bolt impacts the tolerance stack in terms of, e.g., a clearance hole around the bolt. For example, variability in the bolt or associated clearance hole may result in a misalignment of a flowline, impacting flow paths. Variability in an orientation of instrumentation may render data provided by the instrumentation unreliable or even unusable.
FIG. 2A illustrates an example of a system 200 in accordance with the above and the prior art. In particular, the system 200 includes two bolts 202 coupled to a mounting boss 206 via a flange 210. The bolts 202 are seated within respective clearance holes 214. As shown in FIG. 2A, the bolts 202 are not necessarily centered within the clearance holes 214. Furthermore, there is a rotational misalignment between, e.g., the boss 206 and the flange 210
What is needed is an improved technique for centering a bolt within a clearance hole. Furthermore, what is needed is an ability to obtain more accurate installation per a print/specification, allowing for repeatability throughout multiple installations of the bolted object.